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Earlier today, I spoke with Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), and got into a bit of a debate with him over the issue of earmarks. Last Friday, Inhofe offered a spirited defense of Congressional privilege in the National Journal (subscription required), using a separation-of-powers argument that has some merit: Inhofe argues that earmarks have funded many programs that conservatives support, particularly in national defense. As the second-ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee, behind McCain, Inhofe notes that Congress has used earmarks to keep several military programs chugging along despite executive branch objections, including additional C-17 cargo planes that President Obama...

Interrogators pumped detainees full of so much water that the CIA turned to a special saline solution to minimize the risk of death, the documents show. The agency used a gurney "specially designed" to tilt backwards at a perfect angle to maximize the water entering the prisoner's nose and mouth, intensifying the sense of choking – and to be lifted upright quickly in the event that a prisoner stopped breathing. The documents also lay out, in chilling detail, exactly what should occur in each two-hour waterboarding "session." Interrogators were instructed to start pouring water right after a detainee exhaled, to...

Starr Critiques “Al Qaeda 7″ Ad Bethany Stotts, March 9, 2010 My column today deals with media coverage of the recent Keep America Safe (KAS) ad and the connections between the Little Rock, Fort Hood and Christmas Day attacks. For an alternate perspective, Pepperdine University’s Ken Starr recently appeared on Keith Olbermann’s Countdown (with a guest host). Author of the Starr Report and Dean of Pepperdine’s Law School, Starr said that it’s very important “for lawyers to be willing to take on unpopular causes,” making sure that power is checked and that there are arguments “advanced on behalf of those...

Senator Lindsey Graham on Sunday outlined his plan to help President Obama close Guantánamo if the administration agrees to abandon a civilian New York terror trial for 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in favor of a military tribunal. BY MARK SAPPENFIELD On Sunday, two moderate senators defended President Obama’s apparent willingness to reconsider his administration’s decision to use a civilian New York terror trial for the admitted mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The first, Senator Lindsey Graham (R) of South Carolina, is seen as the architect behind the Obama administration’s potential change in plans. He has promised...

Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday that he would help the White House convince his fellow Republicans to support closing Guantanamo Bay if President Obama reverses course and sends the alleged Sept. 11 mastermind and his co-conspirators to military tribunals. Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday that he would help the White House convince his fellow Republicans to support closing Guantanamo Bay if President Obama reverses course and sends the alleged Sept. 11 mastermind and his co-conspirators to military tribunals. The South Carolina Republican is considered to be a key player in the administration's strategy to close the detainee camp at Guantanamo....

The ‘most transparent administration in history’ stonewalls. At a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee last fall, Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, asked Attorney General Eric Holder to produce a list of Department of Justice employees who had been involved in representing detainees. Holder said he’d consider the request. Three months later he denied it. In a letter to Grassley on February 18, Holder acknowledged that nine Justice Department officials had worked on behalf of detainees before joining the Obama administration. The names of two of those officials—Jennifer Daskal and Neal Katyal—had been reported publicly. But Holder refused to...

When I was a kid, we had a tough little dachshund. Then we got a poodle who was as arrogant as you'd expect a poodle to be. The poodle constantly attacked the dachshund, even though time after time the dachshund would have the poodle on her back with her teeth around the poodle's throat in about 2 seconds every time they got into it. That's sort of like Obama and Bush. With Obama being the poodle, and Bush (despite the fact that he doesn't bother to defend his policies in the media) being the dachshund. Renditions? Obama got his butt...

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At a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee last fall, Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, asked Attorney General Eric Holder to produce a list of Department of Justice employees who had been involved in representing detainees. Holder said he’d consider the request.Three months later he denied it. In a letter to Grassley on February 18, Holder acknowledged that nine Justice Department officials had worked on behalf of detainees before joining the Obama administration. The names of two of those officials—Jennifer Daskal and Neal Katyal—had been reported publicly. But Holder refused to disclose the other seven and allowed that...

The no clue ACLU is at it again. This time they're weighing in on the possibility of a White House decision to revert back to military tribunals for 9/11 suspects in hope of gaining Congressional approval for the closing of Guantanamo. The executive director of the ACLU, Anthony D. Romero has said, "If this stunning reversal comes to pass, President Obama will deal a death blow to his own Justice Department, not to mention American values. The military commissions system is incapable of handling complicated terrorism cases." Death blow to the Justice Department? That might not be such a bad...

The Obama administration said Friday that a decision on where to prosecute Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four accused of conspiring in the Sept. 11 attacks would not be made “for weeks,” following a flare-up in the debate about whether that trial should take place in civilian court or before a military commission. The White House sought to dampen speculation that a decision on where to hold a trial might be imminent. That speculation was fanned by a report Friday that aides to President Obama might recommend that he pull the prosecution out of civilian court and send it back to...

WASHINGTON -- Throughout his political career, President Obama could not -- as Jack Nicholson's character in "A Few Good Men" might say -- handle the truth. He had the luxury of going to elegant parties, where he gallantly smoked cigarettes and held forth with idle chatter about the incomprehensibly grotesque manner in which America was fighting this war on terror. We should close that mean prison at Guantanamo, welcome ashore our enemies and treat them to our civilized system of civilian justice, a preening Obama told adoring audiences. It was, as that great American politician Bill Clinton once memorably remarked,...

Joe Lieberman is once again endorsing John McCain over Barack Obama – this time on a critical national security issue. Lieberman and McCain have introduced a bill that would deny Miranda rights to terrorist suspects and block them from the U.S. civil court system. The bill could interfere with the Obama administration’s efforts to cut a deal with Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham to develop a comprehensive system to deal with detainees—an effort that would include some role for federal courts. Graham, a military lawyer and currently serves a colonel in the U.S. Air Force reserves, has been negotiating with White...

The Obama administration's potential reversal on the decision to try the alleged plotters of the Sept. 11 attacks in civilian court could land the suspects back at a military tribunal in Guantanamo Bay or elsewhere, a scenario that is already infuriating the left. The Obama administration's potential reversal on the decision to try the alleged plotters of the Sept. 11 attacks in civilian court could land the suspects back at a military tribunal in Guantanamo Bay or elsewhere, a scenario that is already infuriating the left.  That's to be expected. A source familiar with the review told Fox News the...

The Washington Post article that Dan posted about last night is a head fake. President Obama is not caving on military commissions. He has already caved on them: He failed (thankfully) to abolish them, Congress enacted legislation endorsing them again in 2009, and the administration has already directed a commission trial for the Cole bombers. The real agenda here is to close Gitmo. That’s the ball to keep your eye on. The Post is trying to soften the opposition to shuttering the detention camp by portraying beleaguered, reasonable Obama as making a great compromise that will exasperate the Left. The...

President Obama has stated all along that the decision to move the 9/11 terror trials of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and friends to a civilian court in New York City, has been Eric Holder's and Eric Holder's alone. It is very hard to comprehend that a politically explosive decision like that was made without the approval of the President. But placing the blame on Holder gives him cover for what apparently is coming next. Surprised by the continuing anger about moving the trials to a NY Civilian court WAPO is reporting that the trials may be moved back into the military...

President Obama's advisers are nearing a recommendation that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, be prosecuted in a military tribunal, administration officials said, a step that would reverse Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s plan to try him in civilian court in New York City. The president's advisers feel increasingly hemmed in by bipartisan opposition to a federal trial in New York and demands, mainly from Republicans, that Mohammed and his accused co-conspirators remain under military jurisdiction, officials said. While Obama has favored trying some terrorism suspects in civilian courts as a symbol of...

ustice Department on So-called ”Al Qaeda Seven”: We Will Not Participate in An Attempt to Drag People’s Names Through the Mud March 03, 2010 4:19 PM For several weeks, Republican lawmakers and a conservative group have been attacking the Justice Department for refusing to reveal the names of nine officials who have in some way advocated for or represented detainees at Guantanamo Bay. "The administration has made many highly questionable decisions when it comes to national security, " Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a recent statement, arguing that the public has “a right to know who advises the Attorney...

LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan -- A man who was freed from Guantanamo after he claimed he only wanted to go home and help his family is now a senior commander running Taliban resistance to the U.S.-led offensive in southern Afghanistan, two senior Afghan intelligence officials say. Abdul Qayyum is also seen as a leading candidate to be the next No. 2 in the Afghan Taliban hierarchy, said the officials, interviewed last week by The Associated Press. The story of Abdul Qayyum could add to the complications U.S. President Barack Obama is facing in fulfilling his pledge to close the prison at...

Rahm Emanuel regularly swims at 5:30 a.m., sometimes with his children in tow, so that he can get to the office about 7. Lindsey Graham doesn’t do business in the morning. “Nothing good happens before 9:30,” he declares. Emanuel, a fast-talking Chicago native, made his name as a top aide to President Bill Clinton. Graham, raised in small-town South Carolina, helped manage the Republican effort to remove Clinton from office. Emanuel is an observant Jew who volunteered at a military supply depot in Israel during the 1991 Gulf War. Graham is a churchgoing Southern Baptist who became an Air Force...